


Poltergeist

by Elvhennan



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29159838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvhennan/pseuds/Elvhennan
Summary: Welp, MizzSassyPantaloons basically gave me a writing prompt in my comments section and I HAD to run with it. So here’s a short lil’ side story.Dorian & Amheotil Lavellan have a turbulent relationship. Cole attempts to help in a way that would only ever seem like a good idea to Cole.
Relationships: Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Poltergeist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MizzSassyPantaloons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizzSassyPantaloons/gifts).



> This scene contains a depiction of what could be considered domestic violence so please please please if that is a sensitive or traumatic experience for you, proceed at your own risk.
> 
> There is no hardcore violence and it all turns out okay, but I know a lot of survivors and I would never skip the warning. Love you guys.

Cole was an odd character. I didn’t dislike him I just found him... unsettling. There was much and more I did not say aloud, but he never needed me to. He simply knew what was in my head, in my heart.

It did leave me feeling full of wonder to watch how he helped others, though. I did not believe him to be a demon at all, as some said he was. I’d seen demons, I’d fought demons, he was not that. Solas called him a spirit, but I did not think that was quite right either. He was Cole. And as long as he intended no harm I had no reservations about letting him stay.

That was, until he started prying into Dorian and I.

It was late one night and I was drinking in the corner of the Herald’s Rest alone. Sera, Bull, and Krem were tossing darts at a target she’d tacked to the wall. It was her best depiction of ‘Coryphemus’ as she called him. They were trying to see who could peg him most closely to his face. I was trying to drown my desire for Dorian.

We’d been messing about for a week or two, most recently in my tent in the Emerald Graves. He’d crept in late at night, having heard me tossing and turning. He’d asserted that he could distract me if I’d wished. He certainly had distracted me that night, but as always he had stopped it before it turned into anything... serious. In the end, all he’d managed to do was give me something DIFFERENT to toss and turn about.

“Weight of the world on his shoulders,” Cole’s voice startled me. He’d appeared in the chair beside me. So, so unsettling how he could just do that. “He fears the chains. They’re on all of his people yet he loves the master.”

I dropped my head into my hands, elbows resting on the table. I palmed my face and ran my fingers through my hair. I didn’t need this right now.

“He doesn’t want help. He’s always the helper.”

“Well, you’re right about that,” I sighed.

“You could go to him, the mage. He’s hurting too,” suggested Cole.

“I know he is Cole, though I’m sure you... know better.”

“He couldn’t hide but he didn’t want to run.”

Well that didn’t help. Did he want to go home? Had I made the wrong choice in Redcliffe not urging him to find forgiveness for his father?

“Not your choice,” said the spirit, knowing what I was thinking.

“I guess I can’t argue with you there. Dorian’s a grown man, he can make his own choices,” I replied. I was suddenly very tired. Cole seemed to have that effect on me, almost as though it was exhausting knowing I could not hide from him. I could not avoid the conversations I’d rather not have. I couldn’t appear the stoic Inquisitor.

“It’s okay to be tired,” said Cole.

I gave him a little smile at that. Spirit of Compassion, indeed. Perhaps not SO unsettling.

“Thank you,” I said. I shot back the last of my ale. Ugh, how did Bull drink this piss?

I made my way from the tavern, up the stone steps, and through the hall, stopping to say ‘good night’ to Varric who was always up late writing by the hearth. I continued on to my quarters, peeling off the tailored tunic that I only wore to maintain the facade of a leader. Not that I knew where I was leading these people. 

Still no sightings of Corypheus or Wardens. The Mayor of Crestwood sat now in our crumbling cells and I was to judge him on the morrow. How could I do that? What was appropriate. His callousness towards the blighted villagers was the only reason Crestwood still had any inhabitants at all. But if I were too lenient, surely Sera would abandon the Inquisition altogether. Truth be told, I wouldn’t blame her. I fell onto my bed, my feet hanging over the edge, and rubbed at my temples.

I’d wanted Dorian for a distraction but he only added to my growing list of frustrations. I wanted to lean on Cassandra but I did not dare use her as an emotional outlet when I thought I’d just broken her heart. I groaned, Fen’Harel take me.

I heard footsteps approaching and got up to see who was coming. When the door opened it was my beautiful, irresistible mage. I did not think I was in the mood to see him.

“Are you.... I thought.... “ he looked utterly bewildered.

“What?” now I was too.

Then we both heard a small noise. The lock on the door clicking shut. Dorian turned and tried to open it to no avail.

He sounded exasperated as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cole said you were hurt... I now understand that it was Cole’s definition of ‘hurt’.”

“Ugh,” I rolled my entire head. Not. Helping. Cole. I leaned against the door and said as much but if he was still there he did not care.

I turned back to Dorian, scratching my head in frustration.

“If you’re sleeping in here, YOU’RE taking the couch,” I said.

“So... that’s it then?” Dorian sounded like he expected me to hack down my door.

“Should there be more?” I asked. “I’m the Inquisitor, they’ll notice I’m missing. Someone will unlock the door eventually.”

“Well I... I think this should concern you more than it apparently does.”

“You’re a mage, Dorian,” I flopped back onto my bed, rubbing my tired eyes. “If you want to get out, light the damned door on fire, I don’t care.”

“Well, Cole was right on one account, you are in a foul mood.”

I sucked my teeth. It hadn’t been excessively foul before, but I was certainly getting there. I sat back up to furrow my brows at him.

He was approaching me with that alluring swagger in his gait. “Should we...?”

“No,” I shut him down immediately. “That would not help.”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” he was standing directly in front of me now, reaching for my face. “We could make the best of...”

I pushed his hand away from me. “I said NO,” I spat.

It was the first time I’d refused him since our flirtations began. He looked... confused. Maybe a little hurt.

“I apologize,” he said curtly. “I only wished to be of some assistance.”

“And how would you like to do that?” I actually laughed at the notion that being teased would aid me in any way right now. “You want me to give in and make out with you so that you can feel wanted? So that in a few hours when I’m alone again I can wonder why I gave in?”

“That’s not what this is about,” he insisted.

“Then what is it about!?” I was suddenly unable to control my words, it was like a sickness that had to be expelled. “Dorian, you know... I know you KNOW... that you could have me any time you wanted me but that I can’t say the same of you.”

Maybe I just wasn’t used to it. I’d always been chased, I wasn’t used to chasing. Maybe that’s where the frustration really came from. Maybe it had just been so long since I’d been with ANYONE that I was starting to go insane.

“You’re the Inquisitor,” he said.

“Thank you! Yes! You’re right,” I mocked him, so agitated I rose from my bed and started pacing. Gods, now I truly felt trapped by that locked door. “I forgot all about that.”

He was downright scowling now. “What I meant by that, is that you have all the power in the world, you could have anyone you wanted!”

I whipped around to face him and threw my arms out to my sides. “But I don’t want ANYONE, do I? I want you!”

“And yet you just refused me!”

“Because you’re a bastard!” I shouted. Praise Sylaise that the balcony doors were closed or they’d have heard me in the tavern. “I’m nothing but a plaything to you and I can’t honestly say that I’m not used to that, but usually I don’t leave with my dick still hard.”

“So this is just about the sex, then?” he demanded.

I shook my head, ironic laughter turning to a snarl. Of course he’d make ME seem like the asshole for wanting to be treated like a person. Fucking Tevinter.

“If it were just about the sex, I assure you, I could take it,” I growled. Of course, it was a bluff. I could never force anyone, but my rage blinded my senses.

“Is that so?” he stepped toward me, it was entirely meant to be a challenge, of that I was certain.

“Don’t test me,” I threatened. My fists were actually itching to connect with his pretty jawline. He was a well muscled man, a formidable adversary, I was sure he could handle it.

“Go ahead!” he said, gesturing to my twitching hands. “I’d thought you more than a mindless brute but please, prove me wrong.”

He stepped within arms reach to underline his point and the moment I caught the scent of him my vision blurred. Years of battlefield instinct kicked in and I grabbed him by his collar and threw him up against the stone wall. My jaw was set, muscles flexing as I ground my teeth together, and I was an inch away from his face. My chest was rising and falling rapidly as I breathed hard. My brows were drawn in tight as I glared directly into his eyes.

His expression was shocked. Like he couldn’t believe I’d actually done it. Like he didn’t know what to do next. He’d called my bluff but it had turned out to be less of a bluff than even I thought.

I shook my head and released him. I started to turn away but he caught me by the elbow and his tone was softer when he spoke.

“All right,” he said. “You win. You could take me any time you wanted to. I understand that now.”

I huffed. “I never would,” I admitted hotly. “If you don’t want me, that’s FINE, but please tell me if that’s the case.”

“It’s not that I DON’T want you,” he asserted, “It’s that I don’t know what I DO want.”

“And I have to suffer for that?”

“You can tell me to leave it be any time, and I will do nothing more than apologize for leading you on,” he said.

“I don’t want that either,” I shot back, exasperated. 

“Then I suppose you will have to be patient with me and settle for a few nights where you leave with your dick still hard,” he parroted my words from before.

“Ugh,” the worst part was knowing he was right. I wouldn’t take him by force but I knew I couldn’t manage to leave him alone.

“Now,” he offered. “Would you like to tell me what is wrong?”

I finally took a deep breath. Half my anger with him was not with HIM at all.

“Everything,” I relented.

“Then I suggest we open a bottle and talk about it?”

It didn’t sound half bad. I nodded and retrieved a bottle of brandy I had on the shelf. We sat on my couch with our glasses on the little table and talked for hours. I spoke of how I missed my clan and the forest, he spoke of the friends he’d left behind in Tevinter. He shed a few tears for Felix. I told him I had not been sleeping ANY night, not just when he’d caught me in the Emerald Graves.

And when we kissed goodnight I no longer resented him for ending it there. Yes, he knew how badly I wanted him, but I now comprehended that it was not that he WOULD not give it to me, it was that he COULD not. Not yet. And it was not entirely for his own well being that he hesitated. He was still afraid a relationship might well be an awful idea, and I did not disagree, I just didn’t have the good sense to heed that suspicion.

We’d drank enough to forget that we were locked in, and yet when he went to leave, the door opened.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, thank you to my most interactive reader for putting this scene into my head, this short would literally never have existed without you.


End file.
